Washington Report: Updates from Capitol Hill

Will an Independent Crist Help Meek Become Florida’s Newest U.S. Senator?

Florida’s Republican Gov. Charlie Crist has a difficult decision ahead of him: Should he abandon the GOP and continue his bid to represent the state in the U.S. Senate as an independent?  Crist has until April 30 to make up his mind, but in the meantime, one CBC member whispered in BE.com’s ear, Rep. Kendrick Meek, who also has his sights set on the Senate, “is grinning from ear to ear.”

That’s because the state’s Republican Party may be imploding, which could potentially boost Meek’s prospects. In addition to Crist’s possible defection, the IRS and the FBI reportedly are investigating more than two dozen party and elected officials for using party-issued credit cards for personal expenses. The group includes Crist’s Republican primary opponent Marco Rubio, a former Speaker of the House of Representatives in Florida and current Tea Party darling.

Meek said he expects to win in the fall, but in the meantime, he added, “We don’t want to get in the middle of what’s going on with the GOP and internal politics. But, I can tell you that what the GOP is talking about now, especially the leadership in Florida, is not what Floridians want to hear as it relates to getting people back to work.”

David Bositis, senior political analyst at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, said recent surveys have found the three candidates essentially tied if Crist runs as an independent. Meek’s success at the polls in November will depend on how well he can turn out his base. More than two-third of Florida’s voters are non-white, Bositis added, and Obama got 43% of the overall vote there in 2008.

“If Meek got a large turnout and an independent Crist got a significant portion of Republic votes, it could come down to the wire in a general election,” said Bositis.

No Voting Rights for D.C.

The District of Columbia lost yet another opportunity to gain a vote in Congress this week. During his weekly pen and pad session with reporters Tuesday, a visibly disappointed House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) announced that a vote on the legislation had been removed from the floor schedule. The decision was made after consulting with D.C.’s nonvoting delegate. Eleanor Holmes Norton, a longtime voting rights advocate, found language added to the bill that would restrict the District’s right to enact gun control laws risible.

Hoyer said that he was “profoundly disappointed” that Congress would not consider legislation that would give 600,000 District residents a vote in the House, but “the price was too high.”

According to Norton, despite concerns about the gun issues, she had spent the past year pushing the bill forward because the current majorities in the House and Senate may not exist after November, making the vote that had been scheduled for Thursday its best chance for passage. She asked Hoyer to cancel the vote because of “three outrageous provisions” in an updated version of the bill that made the gun amendment

“even worse than I thought was possible,” Norton explained in a statement

, and because those changes would cause anti-gun senators to drop their support.

Under the provisions added to the bill, the District would be barred from prohibiting people from carrying concealed weapons; the right of the city’s police chief to refuse the issuance of concealed carry licenses would be severely limited; and the District would be unable to prohibit guns in city-controlled buildings or structures that don’t have security measures in place to detect them. A fourth would prevent residential and commercial building owners from restricting or prohibiting firearm possession by tenants.

“These provisions are so over the top, they are unworthy of serious consideration,” Norton said.
Although Hoyer was pessimistic about the prospect of getting a vote on the legislation during this Congress, Norton said that she is already exploring ways to get a voting rights bill passed this year.

Arbitron Reaches Agreement on Measuring Minority Audiences

Minority broadcasters and Arbitron finally reached an agreement Thursday regarding the use of the Portable People Meter. Throughout the long-running dispute, the broadcasters have claimed that the electronic measurement device undercounted minority audiences.

Arbitron has agreed to begin in-person recruiting in high-density black and Hispanic neighborhoods in July, which will enable the company to reach young minority adults who may not have landline phones at home. It also will implement address-based sampling so that landline recruiting will be more accurate. Additional initiatives include increasing by 10% the PPM sample size for people aged 18-54; forming a minority leadership council and expanding advertiser outreach for minority radio.

“We have been talking with Arbitron for more than three years about PPM, and I am pleased that we have been able to come to an agreement for moving forward,” said Jim Winston, executive director of the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters.

The accord was reached at the bequest of Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.), who chairs the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Towns had warned the parties that if they couldn’t find a solution, Congress would. He believed that undercounting minorities decreased both airwave diversity and minority broadcasters’ bottom lines and held several hearings on the issue.

“With this agreement, I believe that minority listeners will be counted and minority-owned radio stations will work more closely in a collaborative effort to ensure the accuracy of ratings,” said Towns. “My committee will closely monitor progress on implementing this agreement.”IRS Encourages Small Businesses to Check Out Healthcare Credit

More often than not, receiving something in the mail from the IRS is not good. But for once the agency has some positive news to share and is mailing postcards to small businesses to alert them to a healthcare tax credit they may immediately qualify for.

Small firms that pay at least half the cost of single coverage for their employees this year are eligible for a tax credit specifically created to help businesses and tax-exempt organizations whose employees are primarily low and moderate income workers. For the next three years, the maximum credit will be 35% of premiums paid by small businesses and 25% for the tax-exempts.

The mailing, said IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman, is intended to encourage small businesses to learn more about the credit and to take advantage of it if they qualify. The postcard can be viewed here.

Small Business Programs Given Three-Month Extension

The Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs and others that fall under the Small Business Investment Act and were set to expire on April 30 have been given a lifeline. The U.S. Senate gave the programs, which were already operating under a temporary extender, a three-month extension this week and the measure will now go to the House for a vote. According to the Senate Small Business & Entrepreneurship Committee, the two chambers are still trying to negotiate “a longer, more comprehensive agreement.”

The SBIR program has generated more than 84,000 patents and millions of jobs and small businesses employ 41% of the nation’s high-tech workers. It is used by eleven federal agencies, including the Department of Defense and the National Science Foundation.

“Over the next three months, I encourage the entrepreneurs, scientists and engineers looking for jobs, or waiting for a chance to explore a promising and innovative idea, to apply for research projects through these programs. SBIR and STTR entrepreneurs start businesses, create jobs and account for 25 percent of our nation’s innovators, and we are ready to support them and their businesses,” said Sen. Mary Landrieu, chair of the Senate small business panel.